Nazir took me by the arm and led me into the corridor. His grip was firm but not painful. Armed men and women, scarred and blistered and wearing pale leather cloaks, stood on either side of the hall. Every one of them held a weapon, knives of various shapes and sizes—some hooked and barbed, some long and broad, some curved and narrow. All deadly. They weren’t taking chances on us. Holloran walked behind Ana, his meaty fingers closed around the back of her neck. Her posture was taut as a bowstring despite the fact that her steps were hampered by the chains. The group turned toward the wide door in unison and one of them held it open for us.
As we filed out of the hallway and through a massive set of metal doors, I waited for my chance. Nazir let go of my arm when we reached a huge fenced-in space filled with humans and a few Mazikin wearing the cloaks with black triangles that I now assumed marked them as members of the enforcement squad. They stared at us with leering eagerness. Probably none of them recognized us, but the Smith had invited them in the hopes of drawing out the man who had been the scourge of the city for a decade, and they were here to make sure he didn’t leave a free man. There were at least twenty of them in the crowd, weapons sheathed at their belts, teeth bared. The humans gave them a wide berth, as if scared to draw their attention. Only Nazir and Holloran kept their heads high as we passed.
The crew led us through an opening in the crowd, and as Holloran moved to the side and shoved Ana next to me, our destination came into view. We were at the southern side of the factory, by the looks of it. To our right was the wall of the city and the filmy dome above us, smog curling against its surface, lit by lights below. Night had fallen while we were imprisoned, which probably meant, somewhere out in the city, my love was about to have his heart ripped out once again. I had wanted to save him from that, and I had failed. But I wouldn’t give up. I would endure whatever they did to us and take any opportunity to escape. I supposed one advantage of not being able to die was that I had endless chances to try. That also meant endless chances to be hurt, but I’d survived pain before. And I’d never had a better reason to go on.
The “yard,” as the Smith had called it, was surrounded by a high sturdy metal fence, barbed wire coiled at its top edge, large stadium lights blazing down on us. The space was about the size of a football field, and there was scaffolding ahead with a platform near the top and metal steps leading to it. As I had feared, the setup reminded me of Malachi’s platform in the square, and I was betting the Smith had very similar plans for Ana and me.
He stood on the platform, all four and a half feet of him, sporting a black cloak. He watched us approaching, his face grim, and then glanced at a low table next to him, his fingers grazing an object that lay atop it. He had a makeshift bullhorn in his other hand, attached to a wire that connected to enormous speakers on the metal roof over his head. He lifted the device to his lips as we reached the bottom of the steps. “Unfasten their ankle shackles. Let them approach their fate on their own two feet.” His voice blasted from speakers positioned against the factory building and at the top of metal columns between stretches of fencing.
Nazir unlocked my shackles and then knelt at Ana’s feet. As soon as he got Ana’s chains open, Holloran shoved us up the stairs.
The Smith’s huge round head came into view again as we climbed, our boots clanging softly against the metal steps. The top of the platform had no railing. One wrong move and someone could go plunging twenty feet or so to the ground below. An interesting prospect, though it looked like it would take a Mack truck to knock the Smith more than a few inches; he was built like a tank and had a low center of gravity, being so short. I looked around, trying to map a possible escape route. We were about ten yards from the high barbed fence that marked the boundary between the factory grounds and the city on the other side. Blocks of three-story cement buildings were all that lay beyond. About a mile away, I knew Malachi was on his platform. I wondered if I was imagining the distant cheers.
“Welcome,” murmured the Smith, his eyes skating over me and Ana. His thick fingers toyed with a ring of keys at his belt. That key ring probably held the one that could unlock Malachi’s chains, but though it was only arm’s length away, it was far out of reach. The Smith turned to Nazir and Holloran. “Put them in position.”
Nazir abruptly grabbed my arms and wrenched my bound hands over my head. Something in the movement drenched me in terrible black memories, and before I could stop myself, my knee jerked up and slammed him in the groin. He groaned and dropped to his knees.
“Men!” shouted the Smith, and the thunder of footsteps told me we wouldn’t be alone up here for long. To my left, I heard a wheezing grunt, and I glanced over to see Holloran tumble over the side of the platform, the victim of a sharp side kick from Ana. Yowls from below told me he had landed on startled members of the crowd.
I spun around, preparing to knock as many men off the platform as I could, but pain blasted through my back. I looked down to see the tip of a metal blade poking through the middle of my leather tunic. Someone had stabbed me straight through. As sticky drops of blood fell heavy on my boots, I sank to my knees. Ana called my name, but I couldn’t answer. And then the Smith’s breath was hot on the side of my face. “I take no pleasure in this. You gave me no choice, Guard.” He yanked the blade out of me, ripping a wet scream from my lungs.
I began to tip forward but was caught by a woman at the top of the steps. “Get her in position,” yelled the Smith.
The woman grunted as she lifted me. “Don’t fight him,” she whispered.
Senseless with pain, I was pressed up against a cold metal surface, my arms forced above my head. Two men held me there, their sweat-scented bodies keeping me upright as a third man fastened my wrists to the wall. And then I was left to hang, my toes brushing the platform’s surface. Ana, still struggling, was chained next to me a moment later.
“Are you okay?” I asked, barely able to get any volume. Below us, the crowd cheered our display.
“Better than you,” she said.
I looked above me—I wasn’t locked to the platform. My shackles had merely been looped over a hook in the wall. If I had the strength, I could get free. But I didn’t. And I couldn’t move my legs. Was I paralyzed? I hadn’t considered this, being alive but unable to run. “Ana,” I whispered, my voice breaking. I was useless once again, and the knowledge amped my pain to an unbearable level.
“See what happens to the enemies of our masters!” shouted the Smith. “See what happens to those who cause trouble in our city!”
His bullhorn PA system carried his booming voice over the crowd’s waving arms, overpowering their screams and cheers. He looked over his shoulder at me, focusing on the bloody mess of my torso. I swear I saw a flash of regret, but it didn’t last long—he was grinning as he turned back to his people. “How should I punish them?”
He looked at the Mazikin, who were the only ones not cheering. They looked wary, their round ears twitching, their black noses trembling. The Smith’s smile wavered, then turned into a line of determination. His thick fingers closed over a curved knife on his table, which was laden with instruments of torture—pliers, blades, tools I couldn’t even identify—all of which seemed designed solely to cause pain. I closed my eyes. If we had any chance at all, it was Ana. If I could draw the abuse and hold his attention, she could stay strong and maybe escape. I pushed a laugh from my tight throat, and the Smith turned back to me with surprise. “This amuses you?”
I swallowed back the metallic taste of blood on my tongue. “It’s funny, that’s all. How pathetic you are.”
“Shut up, Lieutenant,” Ana snapped.
The Smith’s attention remained focused on me. “You have an odd sense of humor.”
“No, I just realized that old cliché is true.” When he gave me a questioning look, I continued, forcing my voice into steadiness. “You’re just a little man who drew a short straw.” I let my gaze fl
ick to his pants. “And you’re working hard to compensate.” I chuckled again, though it caused waves of agony. “Don’t let me stop you, dude.”
“You couldn’t if you tried,” he growled. He raised his curved blade and came toward me, and I closed my eyes again, willing myself to be elsewhere.
“But maybe I could,” said a voice distorted by the screeching feedback of the audio system.
The Smith flinched, and the crowd hushed. “Who is that?”
“You invited me here,” said the voice.
“Show yourself,” the Smith roared. He stepped up to me quickly and pressed his blade to the side of my face. My eye twitched as the knife’s edge cut into my skin, but I stayed quiet.
“Let them go, and I won’t hurt any of you.”
The disembodied voice had a remarkable effect on the crowd. Many of the people crouched low, their eyes darting from speaker to speaker as if the challenger were actually hiding inside one of them. The Mazikin had dropped to all fours and moved to the edge of the courtyard, by the fence, frantically scanning the crowd, their fangs glistening, their claws curled.
The Smith laughed. “If you are who I think you are, you’re alone. And one man. Your threats are empty.”
The voice tsked. “I am one man.” A chuckle. “But I’ve always considered myself special. Let them go.”
The Smith’s blade carved a hard line of pain down the side of my face, and I screamed. “Show yourself, and then we can talk,” the Smith said, sounding bored. But his hand shook as he wiped his bloody knife on my tunic.
“Very well, Smith. Here I am.”
This time, the voice hadn’t come from the PA system.
It had come from only a few feet above us. A man swung down from the metal roof of our platform, sending a few other men plummeting to the ground as he cleared a path to the Smith using his fists and feet. He lowered his hood and grinned as the Smith backed against the table of torture implements.
Takeshi’s black hair stuck up in every direction as he leaned over the Smith and raised his eyebrows. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
TWELVE
TWO OF THE SMITH’S men grabbed Takeshi’s arms and dragged him back from their boss, but it only took a moment for him to dispatch them. His eyes flashed dark and fierce as he vaulted over the Smith and onto the table. He raised his hand above his head.
He was holding a grenade. “I brought you a present,” he said quietly to the Smith, who pressed himself next to Ana, against the metal back of the platform. “Watch this.”
Takeshi threw the grenade over the heads of the crowd. It landed near the group of Mazikin who had been hovering by the fence. They flinched away but then padded closer to the small black sphere. Their noses twitched as they sniffed at it.
I turned my head as the deafening explosion flattened me against the metal wall and rattled my chains. When I opened my eyes, Takeshi was standing in front of me and Ana, single-handedly battling three men. The Smith was nowhere to be seen. Screams and shouts melded together in a tidal wave of noise.
A skinny man with knobby fingers slipped behind Takeshi and began to reach for him, but Ana wrenched her legs up and around his neck before the guy could do much else. With a sickening crack, he fell to the floor of the platform.
“Thanks,” Takeshi called out without turning around.
“Back up a few,” said Ana.
He obeyed her immediately. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he continued to fight, and in an instant, she’d pulled her shackled wrists from the hook above her head. She dropped to the platform. Her dark eyes slid over me. “Hang tight.”
“Very funny,” I muttered.
In an instant, she’d commandeered the torture table. Even with her hands shackled, sharpened implements were flying in all directions, felling opponents who went plunging off our raised stage with screams and surprised yelps. “We have to get to that opening in the fence,” she said in a breathless voice.
“Or I could make us another one,” said Takeshi as he finished off another opponent. He reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out another precious grenade. He hurled it toward the section of fence closest to us, knocked yet another man off the platform, and whirled to face me. “Time to go, Lela,” he said softly, then grasped my waist and lifted me. My hands pulled free of the hook, and my arms fell limp in front of me. Searing pain radiated from the hole in my stomach, causing me to stumble.
“Sorry I couldn’t stop him before he did that,” Takeshi said. “I didn’t expect you to fight them.”
“Instinct,” I gasped as he dragged me to the steps of the platform.
“Ana,” Takeshi called.
“Behind you. I’ll cover your exit,” she replied.
Boom. We were knocked backward as the fence in front of us was blasted open in a blinding flash that shook the steps beneath our feet. People squealed and scattered, so that the square was now dotted only with a few Mazikin and a handful of the Smith’s guards. I had no idea where their leader had fled to, though I wished he’d stayed to fight. I would have enjoyed seeing Takeshi give him a taste of what it felt like to have a blade thrust through his stomach.
We heard Mazikin growls and snarls behind us. They were closing in fast. Takeshi carried me toward the wide section that had been blown open in the fence, but from the corner of my eye I saw a member of the enforcement squad galloping toward us on all fours. “Tak—” I began, but then the Mazikin was felled by Ana—with a knife to the skull.
Halfway down the steps, she waved us toward the street as she turned to face another charging creature.
Downed Mazikin were scattered around the yard, torture implements embedded in their throats and chests. Takeshi dragged me onto the road beyond the fence and dropped me there. “Ana,” was all he said by way of explanation.
I lay on the rough concrete, staring at its crumbling surface and listening to the animal cries of pain coming from the yard. Then Ana and Takeshi appeared. They each grabbed one of my arms, and we were off, my toes skimming the ground as we fled along near-empty streets. We took a series of turns down dark alleys before diverting into a sort of alcove that smelled of garbage and pee. As we paused, I heard distant cheering once again. Ana cursed and said something in Spanish to Takeshi. He replied, and she fell silent.
Takeshi leaned close and examined my face in the dim glow of lights from windows above us. “I took the first chance I had to get you out.”
I wanted to ask him where he had disappeared to, but I didn’t have the breath or strength.
“It’s all right,” said Ana. “Except . . .” She pressed in next to him and gazed at my face. “You are so stupid,” she said to me, giving me a little shake. But her voice was gentle.
“She’ll heal,” said Takeshi. “Though not completely and not well.”
Ana’s expression twisted. “Is there anything that would help?”
Takeshi pursed his lips. “I can think of one thing, but Lela might not like it. We have a choice now, go to my safe chamber or—”
“Anything,” I said in a weak voice. “I need to be able to fight.”
“In all my years in the city,” said Takeshi, “I have seen many strange things. But the strangest of all might be the key to Lela’s recovery. It’s rare, but I’ve seen it work. Lela’s one of the few people in the city who might have access to it.”
“And what’s that?” asked Ana.
“Come on,” he said, picking me up again. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”
“Where are we going?”
“Back to Zip. Lela needs to be with her mother.”
Takeshi and Ana supported me as we crept along alleyways and scrambled across streets, making our way closer to the square.
“What about the Smith?” Ana asked as we walked. “Won’t he alert the Mazikin to our presence? He knew we were here for
Malachi, even if he doesn’t understand the entire plan.”
“Oh, he’ll warn them. But we made sure none of the Mazikin in the yard lived to tell about it, and most of the people and creatures out tonight were already near the square where the Queen is putting on her show. Only those loyal to the Smith and his Mazikin cronies went to see who he’d captured. He has a history of torturing troublemakers in his courtyard, and I suspect no one thought you were much different.”
“But he knew we were like you,” said Ana. “And he was furious. He wanted to catch you.”
“He wanted to please his masters,” answered Takeshi in a tense voice.
“He said you’d caused a lot of trouble,” I mumbled. I hated the Smith, and hated what he’d done, but in a way, it made sense. Takeshi had been hell-bent on provoking the Mazikin, but I wondered if he’d considered the repercussions for the ordinary humans in the city. The Smith said they’d been punished for the crimes Takeshi committed. No wonder they hated him.
“We have a little time before they’re alerted.” Takeshi pulled me into yet another alley barely in time to avoid being hit by a passing cart that was spewing black fumes into the lamplit road. “We left a real mess for the Smith to clean up, and by dawn, no one will be on the streets. But as soon as the sun goes away, he’ll send someone to warn the Queen.”
“Which means we have to rescue Malachi before then,” Ana said quietly. “If the Mazikin know we’re here to rescue him, they’ll try to make it impossible. Tonight might be our only chance to get him out of there.”
“Agreed,” I said in a choked voice.
“Agreed,” echoed Takeshi. “Here we are.”
They guided me down a set of cramped stairs and into a rocky tunnel. My pants were stiff with blood and God knows what else seeping from the gaping hole in my stomach, and it felt like half of my face had been torn away. We reached a closed metal door. Takeshi scratched at it and whined and coughed, no doubt saying something in the Mazikin language.